Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Nuance is a podcast of The Collaborative helping Christians to faithfully live out their faith in their work. We recognize most of life is not lived in black and white but rather lived in the gray, lived in the nuance.
You can find more, including complementary spiritual exercises, at www.collaborativeorlando.com/nuance.
Many churches, many traditions have conditioned us to a pretty low level of authenticity and honesty in the sanctuary. The sanctuary is the place where we praise, where we give thanks, where we are joyful, and there isn't a lot of space for honest laments.
Speaker 2:How can pastors and worship leaders actually lead worship that forms Christians for their work? How can people who are worshiping be mindful of their work as they move through the motions of worship? Well, today, friends, we turn to this very practical question. Why was that hymn chosen or that confession or creed? Why do we pray in this way or preach on those topics?
Speaker 2:What aren't we doing that might fill out the Christian experience? Well, it can really make a difference in how the church forms and equips people in the rest of their lives for how our worship services function. Well, in our last episode, we explored the theological vision behind a new book entitled Leading Worship for Workers published by Baker Press. Our guest again today back are Matthew Kamik and Katie Rulofs. They're coauthor of this book and leading the worship for workers initiative.
Speaker 2:Matthew and Katie, thanks for being here on Nuance.
Speaker 3:Good to be here.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having us back.
Speaker 2:Let me welcome you listeners and viewers here on Nuance. We explore what it means to be faithful in the public square for Christ. Now as I mentioned last time, this conversation is in a way first for worship leaders, pastors, music directors, etcetera. But at the same time, I wanna keep our conversation accessible for everyone listening. So all Christians participate in worship And my hope is that by hearing this conversation, it will help us think more thoughtfully about our own worship experience and how our minds and hearts are shaped through that.
Speaker 2:And even in our devotional lives, you may get some ideas today to pass along to your church leadership. Well, Matt researches the relationship between theology, culture, and public life. He's recently been appointed professor of public theology at Utrecht Theological University in The Netherlands. Katie is a member in the Reformed Church of America and has spent nearly two decades in worship and music ministry. She previously served a congregation in the DC area and now works as a worship consultant and the managing director of the Worship for Workers Initiative.
Speaker 2:Okay, friends. We did the bigger picture theology last time. You say in the book, the book is designed for pastors and worship leaders who recognize this problem. And we know, my goodness, people in ministry are way overwhelmed and have very full plates for sure. So such resources are are incredibly helpful.
Speaker 2:If a pastor sees the problem we've been discussing and that is the absence of recognizing one's work and contribution in most of their daily hours spent, if we see the absence of that in our worship experience and the and the the leader is overwhelmed on how to work this in, what do you think would be a first great step?
Speaker 1:We we address the exhaustion problem actually early on because we recognize that it's a real one. Mhmm. That worship leaders and pastors, they're often told you should be doing this, giving people more to do. And so we acknowledge that early on that this isn't a book that's going to just give you a whole lot of new things to do or to try. It's not an expansion of worship.
Speaker 1:This is deepening practices. We encourage worship leaders and pastors early on in this book to do just a short little self audit of some of the congregational strengths that they have in worship. What are two or three things that your church does really well? The parts of liturgy, the parts of worship that really make somebody's heart sing. What are those things that you do really well already?
Speaker 1:And how can we find ways to deepen those practices rather than And
Speaker 2:you mean what a a church does really well in worship on a Sunday morning, you don't mean like ministries throughout the week or children's or
Speaker 1:Right. Talking more specifically about worship. Okay. Talk about deepening practices rather than expansion of practices.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So just as an example, like if your church is really great with testimonies and your your people know how to do testimonies Yeah. Here, just like, let's deepen that and make those testimonies more work oriented and encouraging people to talk about how God is engaging work. Or if your church is really comfortable praying together and, you know, you have that practice, like, let's think about continuing to develop and deepen that. So building off of what they know, you know, rather than doing something radically different.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Because that not only shakes people, maybe too much, but it's hard to fit in new stuff or new practices. You have politics to fight, you have only so much time. How open will your congregants be to a new thing rather than enjoying a thing or thinking, this is new. This is not normal.
Speaker 2:So deepen what you already do.
Speaker 1:Those are precious seventy two minutes to fill. So we're not trying to rewrite 68 of them. We're trying to help you look at those 72 and recognize the ways that you can speak to them in a way that honors Yeah. Challenges, disrupts maybe a little bit, and sends workers each week.
Speaker 2:Oh, I wish we did seventy two minutes. I say at First Pres Orlando, which is a very structured, timed, explicitly organized service. Then we say the spirit moves six weeks to six months ahead of time, right, to get that all in place rather than in the moment. But at sixty two minutes, I joke that there is a door that opens up beneath the sermon or the sorry, the pulpit and the the pastor will fall through the door if you go past sixty two. Right?
Speaker 2:Because then your Sunday school teachers and nursery workers are like, oh, we're dying over here. Let us out. Let us out. Yeah. So you write in the book, worship is a dynamic and active conversation between a people and their god.
Speaker 2:Now if somebody like a lay person is listening, and that might be a new concept to them, and you referred a bit to this, Katie, in our last conversation. Worship is a dynamic and active conversation back and forth between the people and their god. What would you say to different workers? So laborers or white collar folks, what would you say to them as they're sitting in the pews and wanting to be more intentional about how their their vocation in labor blesses God and is given to him?
Speaker 1:I think this is part of where the honesty comes in that we talked about a little bit in the last episode. Think over time, many churches, many traditions for a variety of different reasons have conditioned us to a pretty low level of authenticity and honesty in the sanctuary. Meaning that the sanctuary is the place where we praise, where we give thanks, where we are joyful, and there isn't a lot of space for honest laments and for honest prayers of this is really hard, God. Mhmm. Nobody else around me knows what I have coming up this week.
Speaker 1:And this isn't a safe space for you and I to talk about this, God, or a safe space for me to be able to share this with the people that are around me.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:The idea of worship as dialogue, it requires authentic and honest dialogue. Just imagine the rest of your earthly relationships, what would happen if they were either one-sided. Maybe we've all been in one-sided relationships where the dialogue is only one way and it starts to suffer and falter. And also ones where you can't show up and be your true self and be honest. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:The ability to be able to do that in worship, in my opinion, has it's suffered over time.
Speaker 2:So true.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I mean, just to reframe for a moment, the sermon, you know, we've all been in sermons where our mind drifts away from the sermon.
Speaker 2:Well, in mine, but go Not yours. I've heard this happens, go ahead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, allegedly in other congregations. Your mind drifts away during the sermon towards the things of work. Maybe it's a conflict with a colleague or a sharp word that was said that week or a project that isn't getting done or just a a big time concern. And when that happens, a lot of workers can sort of feel guilty for being they can feel guilty that they're not paying attention to the sermon, that they're not being quote unquote spiritual, that they, you know, as opposed to thinking, oh, maybe, just maybe, God has prompted me to think about this, and I need to bring this to him. Maybe I need to bring this, you know, workplace relationship or workplace conflict to this sermon.
Speaker 3:So maybe this is not an unwanted interruption, but maybe this is the Holy Spirit's interruption that I'm holding something back from God that I actually need to bring. And that that kind of reframing, I think, can be really helpful to some people who
Speaker 2:are Yeah.
Speaker 3:Frankly beating themselves up for not being quote unquote spiritual on Sundays, you know.
Speaker 2:The distractions, the stress, the thinking about what to do on Monday. What do I need to go to home on a Sunday afternoon or evening to get ready for the week? It can really be distracting, but yet God can speak in that. He can lean into you in that. Matt, you you mentioned in our last conversation about the way in which in in Israelite worship, things were lifted up, lifted above their heads.
Speaker 2:For some may hear in this conversation might think, you ought to be a little too creative. Look, keep worship biblically based. Yeah. The ordinary means of grace are enough. We don't need to all this fancy creative stuff.
Speaker 2:Talk to us a little bit about Israel's worship overall and and why this is in fact quite biblical. Look at you smile. This is your kind thing.
Speaker 3:Katie's laughing because I'm getting all riled up here.
Speaker 2:Here we go.
Speaker 3:So worship in the Old Testament was super messy. It was filled with goats and cows and shepherds and Smelled. And and it smelled. And and people were constantly bringing their work in. And in fact, many of the worship services in the Old Testament are actually led by the worker.
Speaker 3:The priest is off to the side. It's the worker who's bringing the offerings and saying
Speaker 2:Yeah. The
Speaker 3:Moreover, in the New Testament and the early church, people are constantly bringing the work of their hands into worship. In fact, the very first worship book in Christianity has specific prayers for the blessings of cheese, the blessings of olives and fish.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's my kind of blessing.
Speaker 3:So a fisherman a fisherman could come in, bring his fish, and there was a liturgy for accepting fish and blessing his fish. And the worship leader was commanded to say exactly these words when the fish were brought in. Mhmm. That's the very first worship book. So Wow.
Speaker 3:This notion that there's this pure, simple biblical worship that is not so complicated by work is just a myth. Yeah. Biblical worship is filled with work. And then finally, you got me all riled up
Speaker 2:Come
Speaker 3:on. Case. Great. Oh, is just look at the Psalms. The Psalms themselves are packed full of worker language.
Speaker 3:And God God is he is compared to a farmer, an irrigator, an engineer, a shepherd, a waitress. He's doing
Speaker 2:A waitress? Okay.
Speaker 3:Oh, Well, my he fills my cup to overflowing. There you go. There it is right there. So it's but it's filled with all of these things. Some of the Psalms talk about being cheated in the marketplace and, like, crying out to God that, you know, the wealthy man is cheating us in the marketplace.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. So, yeah, once again, this notion that biblical worship is not earthy and material is just it's just a complete myth. Yeah. Done. My sermon's over.
Speaker 2:There you go. We should be praying for Katie. My goodness. She has to
Speaker 1:I was too distracted thinking about my work while you were preaching, so no.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Your work is doing this. That's so so explain that to me. And thank you, Matt. That that's very helpful.
Speaker 2:And I I was so grateful when I got into seminary, and we worked through particularly Nehemiah and and saw the undergirding liturgy that was big in the reform tradition to see, okay, this is why we do this and move that way and do that and what are the essential components. So it is it is helpful to to think of those things. Now let's get into the worshipforworkers.com. So you're an organization. Is that right?
Speaker 2:And plan to continue to create resources and people can go to the website and get them.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's right. So we're we partner with Faith and Work centers around the country as well as the Made to Flourish Network.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And we do events around the country, concerts and things like that. We also do trainings for pastors and worship leaders. But the core thing of what we do is provide online resources so that churches all over the country can go to our website and get free prayers, blessings Mhmm. Worship plans, all those kinds of things. It's all there at worshipforworkers.com.
Speaker 3:And Katie is is the master of the of that website, and so she can answer any questions you have about
Speaker 2:it. Mhmm. And I think, Katie, you may have referenced or or I don't know who did. The the these come from a variety of theological streams. So you can go to the site and find things that fit within your tradition and style.
Speaker 1:That is correct. We have several prayers that are listed online who are written by our dear friends in the Roman Catholic tradition and different from the way that I worship on Sunday, but something that will be beautiful and will bless their churches as well. Yeah. It's a very wide diverse group of things that are on that site. And the goal is that as people read them, not everything is gonna work for you.
Speaker 1:We say that upfront too that not everything is going to work for you. But the goal is that it opens up your imagination and your curiosity for what will work in your context.
Speaker 2:Well, I found on the website that in 2024, you had a song competition as you were looking for sending songs. So something maybe at the benediction or the end of a service that sends people out. Tell me about that.
Speaker 1:We did. We hosted a sending songs competition back in 2024, and the winning song from that album is on the new Porter's Gate Sending Songs album that starts to release at the end of this month.
Speaker 2:Okay. And we're recording this in March 27. So this will be out once that is already out and released. We'll certainly share that on our social media. So tell me about how you've shaped the competition and and what sort of entries you get.
Speaker 1:I did a quick audit of hymnals. Curious for any of the listeners out there to do the same thing. Open up if you are a church that uses hymnals. Open up the hymnal you use and see what percentage of your hymnal are what we consider closing songs or sending songs.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:So often, many churches default either to a praise God from whom all blessings flow. We love to pull in those like eschatological hymns as our closing ones, the I'll Fly Away.
Speaker 2:Onward Christian soldiers.
Speaker 1:Onward Christian soldiers. But when we think about the formative work that that does over time, what we want is we want a song that's sending people. Yeah. Helping to do that work of sending and blessing back into the streets, back into the work that God has for them for the week.
Speaker 2:Not just to the mission field, not just for evangelism, but sending them into their daily work habits.
Speaker 1:And so we recognize that there is a very small song diet of what we call sending songs, and wanted to do something about that and to kind of just get a a movement starting where people will consider that and think about that. And I've had people reach out that have said, you've ruined it for me because now I can't include any of our normal songs ascending songs anymore. And then I say, well, here's the practice of song framing. You can sing any song you want to, and with, like, just two or three sentences, it can change the way that the congregation engages the song to give it a setting focus. But this particular song competition was strictly for sending songs.
Speaker 1:And they're all posted up on our website and free for use.
Speaker 2:Do you have more competitions planned?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think we'd we'd we'd love to do it again. I mean, it was a great success, but we don't have one planned yet. But I think it's a great model to gather lots of creative people who are out there. I think Katie wasn't surprised, but I was surprised by how many submissions, how many creative people there are out there who make wonderful things.
Speaker 3:You know, it seems to me like the worship industry is kind of dominated by a number of big, you know, worship create like, content creator type people, And you can kinda easily forget that small congregations all over the country Yeah. Are packed full of really creative songwriters, prayer writers, poets Yeah. That are doing really cool stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, you tell me as worship experts, but my observation is the glocal movement, the localizing of food sources and fashion and architecture to particular regions of the country. I think that that sort of approach to worship are is taking place in the churches that are growing and and growing most deeply, maybe not in number, but in that by that I mean, don't just use a plug and play. Hey, we're gonna take Christian radio songs and and own them. And the same thing goes for traditional worship in terms of we're kinda plugging and playing what Presbyterians did in 1952. Right?
Speaker 2:Like in our church, we've got both traditional contemporary styles, but like you say, we're gonna write stuff. We're gonna make it unique in in that artistic expression is as much a part of the experience rather than the the plug and play.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I I mean, can give you a practical I completely agree, and I can give you a practical example to kinda back up what you're saying,
Speaker 2:Case.
Speaker 3:Like, you know, Katie and I can write a prayer, a generic prayer for nurses. Right? We can do that, and I mean, think it's pretty good. But I mean, imagine case if you were to, you know, invite eight nurses to to lunch, you know, in the local hospital
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And you were just to spend an hour with them asking them about the hospital and what breaks their heart about their work Mhmm. And what they love about their work, and what they long for in terms of healthcare. And you just spend an hour doing that. Yeah. And if you wrote that prayer for them, right, as opposed as opposed to using something I wrote a thousand miles away, it would mean so much more to them because their pastor asked them, their pastor knows them and sees them.
Speaker 3:And so I think this is a big part of why we wrote this book is Katie and I don't simply want to drop resources from a helicopter into churches, but we would love to see pastors and worship leaders, you know, asking these questions, thinking about their people, and creating them themselves. I mean, that is that's where it really starts to
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:To sing. I mean, you know, so.
Speaker 2:Katie, you're nodding and smiling.
Speaker 1:Well, with the the recognition that worship is always contextual. The same song can be sung by 4,000 churches across the country, but it's going to mean something, and it's going to be significant in a different way to every church. And the more you can harness in on that contextuality and on the group of people that you are tasked with and have the privilege of leading every week, better. And to follow-up on what Matt was saying, your group of nurses, imagine what it looks like for them to write the prayer and to lead the prayer themselves that week. Thinking about the fact that the six year anniversary of COVID, when COVID first became a thing, is probably right around now.
Speaker 1:Right? It was March 2020. Mhmm. And what it looks like to have eight nurses write a prayer for health care professionals on that anniversary and either lead it or have someone else lead it. But the power of the work of the people, the liturgy, the work of the people.
Speaker 2:The nurse example makes me realize it, but perhaps I should have said this at the beginning. With this conversation is this basic theory that worship is formative, worship is discipleship. And somebody listening may not have ever thought of it that way. They just think, oh, this is an inherited tradition or this is just what those kind of Christians do. And and they we maybe not recognize the words that you say and how you say them, the songs that you do, even just the kind of clothes you wear and the architecture of the building you sit in.
Speaker 2:I mean, all these things help form a Christian. And and so therefore, let's be thoughtful and inform them in ways that help them be good disciples in their work. I am big supporter of church plants and this is not a slight on the many wonderful church plants that are out there and that are needed. But I realized early in my career, you know what, I like a church with chimneys. I I am not called to serve a church that's in a school or in an old grocery store, we need them.
Speaker 2:But there's something to me that communicates in my faith walk as well as to my children, I want to be in an institution in the community that will be there a hundred more years from now, that is in dialogue with the marketplace and the governmental leaders and the arts community. I want a church with chimneys. So that example, I think, is one of where I am formed in that environment and and feel like that fits with discipleship.
Speaker 3:Do you mean chimneys or steeples?
Speaker 2:Chimneys, baby.
Speaker 3:Chimneys, like fireplaces. Yes. Yes. Alright. Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So my first church of call was First Presbyterian in Baton Rouge founded in 1829, I think, '27. 1827. And the building was probably built in the nineteen twenties, but there were fireplaces all over the place. Here at First Preser Orlando, they did a massive renovation in 2000 or so.
Speaker 2:So I don't there the fireplaces are not to be seen. They're covered up, I guess. But I on the outside, you can see chimneys all over the place.
Speaker 3:What what is a fireplace doing in Florida? I mean, when it gets to, like, sixty sixty five degrees? Is that when you need a fireplace? Like, what what is this, man?
Speaker 2:Well, there's about eight days a year when I can use my fireplace. And about six of those days, we have to turn on the air at the same time so that the it's blown out. Yeah. I
Speaker 1:don't I don't think I've ever seen a church with a chimney. I'm thinking about it now.
Speaker 2:My goodness. You're missing out. You're missing out.
Speaker 3:That's great.
Speaker 2:But it does and and it's not always helpful. I mean, the the you can be formed in negative ways. Yeah. You could come to a church with big columns like ours and think, oh, hooty snooty and this is to socialize with the power brokers. I mean, there's the detrimental side of this because we're all fallen.
Speaker 2:But I really appreciate how you're kinda calling the question on forming workers and forming them well.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I mean, this formation thing, you know, for the ancient people of Israel, the whole point of worship was to remember that you were in Egypt. So the people of Israel were constantly forgetting what God had done for them in Egypt. And so worship was this rehearsal of saying it over and over and over again. And so when a worker would bring, you know, like a farmer, when a farmer would bring his first fruits Mhmm.
Speaker 3:The the danger was always he was gonna think to himself, look at all this great stuff that I made. Look at all look at how wealthy I am. Mhmm. Look look at how how secure I am and how safe I am and what a great farmer I am. And the purpose of the worship, he would say a prayer in which he had to say, you know, my forefathers were slaves.
Speaker 3:They were wandering in the wilderness, and God brought me to this land. And without God, I would still be wandering. And so the whole purpose of the worship service was to remind the worker where they would have been and also to remind the worker that the wealth was for sharing because the worship service was a sharing service where they would share the fruit with their servants and foreigners and, you know, migrants and widows and orphans. So the whole purpose of worship was to form the worker and remind the worker of what work is for. And so, you know, sometimes people think Katie and I are doing something new and revolutionary.
Speaker 3:And right? We're just saying, no. Actually, we're doing something incredibly old. Yeah. We're we're trying to bring worship back to ancient Israel and the early church was it was it was for workers, you know.
Speaker 2:What to what degree did the ancient Israelite society being a pre cash, pre currency type society have an influence on things? Because on the one hand, I could think you brought your goats and sheep and pigeons for sacrifice because that represented your your agricultural produce. But did we lose something when societies went to a cash system for wealth?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Absolutely. We lost something, and also money is money is confusing as well because today, people think about the offering as giving to God or giving to the church. So they think of it as like a
Speaker 2:donation. Funding an institution.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, they think of it as a donation to a nonprofit. So, like, I'm putting it in the plate like I would give to World Vision or to Compassion International. And they they start to think that they are helping God, like, as if God needed them. And in ancient Israel, they'd take a cow up there, and they would just burn it to ashes.
Speaker 3:Right? And there's there's no confusion when you burn a cow to to nothing. Right. It's no one's gonna eat that, no one's gonna use it. So it was actually quite wasteful, like in in sort of a
Speaker 2:Well, in God in the Psalms would even say, do you really think I need the cattle on a thousand nails? But but rather the idea is that he's smelling and breathing in this this their burning sacrifices and that is pleasing him. That aroma is pleasing because it represents their genuine sacrifice and desire to serve.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So money has messed us up in a in a variety of ways, but specifically in worship. I I don't know, Katie, if you have anything.
Speaker 1:A lot of our language also goes into the direction then of I'm giving this money because this money is gonna go to do God's work.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:In all reality, if we believe in the priesthood of all believers, your work matters as much as the as much as the organizations that you are funding overseas.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh, for
Speaker 1:sure. Matters in the same way.
Speaker 2:Well, if and I like that. I mean, if money has messed us up, now as we shift to all electronic, like, I don't I don't carry cash anymore. I think do my children have cash? So my daughter is in college and she has a roommate and there's a man who cuts their grass and he only knows cash and he doesn't have Venmo and all these fancy things. And she had to pay him the other day and called me, like, what do I do?
Speaker 2:How do I get cash? And I said, remember the ATM? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, it was an honest question. So I wonder how will the digitization of currency further twist with our offering, and maybe that leads me back around to how much more important your work is.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, I mean, let's think about one other thing that gets lost, which is the first fruits. So first fruits is is more than just, you know, a 10% or a cut or an extra. You know, my I come from Seattle where we, you know, have lots of apples out there in Washington. And in October, when the apples are about to be picked, but they're not quite picked, that's a very nerve wracking time for farmers because a storm could come through at the last minute and destroy the apples.
Speaker 3:Right? And so first fruits is you're taking the first ones that come ripe and you're giving them away. So you're you don't know if the whole crop is gonna come in. So you are giving, you know, and you're putting yourself in a position of dependence. So you're not giving off of the extra, you're giving before you the whole harvest has come in.
Speaker 3:The second part of first fruits is you're giving the fruit that you are really proud of. So with money, it's not like, well, this $50 bill is my favorite $50 bill. You know, they all mean the exact same to you. Mhmm. So with money, your work is kind of flattened.
Speaker 3:So the other thing that we have to talk about is what is the part of your work that you're really proud of? The part of the part of there's a portion of your work that you just really geek out about, and you're like, wow, I really crushed it, or I just love this. I was in a state of flow of like total joy and success. Mhmm. And that's not the same as just going to a boring meeting or, you know, sort of doing the job.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And God actually wants you to take that portion of work that you love the most, and he wants to share it with you. He wants to share that joy and that delight. And that time of offering is this moment for you of deep spiritual joy and pride of what you made. And when when all we do is give money, it's just sort of this flat thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right? And so there's this kind of childlike pride that we have in this portion of our work that is lost when we just do money. And so that's something Katie and I are thinking about. We haven't totally figured out how to resurrect that, but, yeah, I don't know if you have thoughts, Katie.
Speaker 1:We've tried things or other churches that we've worked with have tried, like a physical tangible offering.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Have congregation members bring something of the work of their hands. Bring the successful IEP that you just, worked through with a child at school or bring the spreadsheet that represents the grant that you just applied for or bring whatever it is that you are proud of, that first fruit moment. Bring it to church with you and during the offering, bring it forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's cool.
Speaker 1:As you can imagine, that's met with some That's awkward. Right? That's very awkward. Nobody quite That's like a step too far. You have to stair step your way to get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I've worked with a couple churches though who have had the children lead the way, and that's been very powerful and very poignant that they have a children's offering during the normal offering time where kids bring the work of their hands, whether it's the Lego statue that they made or whether it's the test that they studied really hard for or the first time that they learned cursive and wrote their name in cursive, something that they're proud of that they have done. And they'll bring that forward. Yeah. And they'll lay that before God and say, thank you, God, for this.
Speaker 1:And that that has been a beautiful moment. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Matt Kamming, Katie Rulofs, thank you so much. Really appreciate it and God's blessings on your work.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Case.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Rich blessings to you all in these conversations. Love the podcast, man. This this is a great conversation. Thank you.
Speaker 2:If you wanna explore their book or more about this project, go to worshipforworkers.com. We'll have it in our show notes. The book is Leading Worship for Workers, How to Design Liturgies for All of Life published by Baker Press. Maybe you would like to get a copy for your pastor or the music leaders that may put together your liturgy. Well, friends here at The Collaborative, we create content and unique experiences for Christ centered professionals in the public square, and we're here to serve.
Speaker 2:Go to our website, wecolabor.com, to explore our work. Leave us your email, and I'll send you a copy of Zeitgeist, our journal on faith, work, and culture. Many thanks for today's episode sponsor, the Stein Foundation. I'm Case Thorpe, and God's blessings on you.